Thursday, July 30, 2009

You know Toyota, adding a fancy haircut and skirt to your latest meet 'n greet robot doesn't make us any less afraid. Note how the "fingers" on Tipper (with gore) Robina's hands are perfectly aligned to hold your face like an organic bowling ball. Just sayin's all.

According to Japan's Nikkei Business, Toyota is set to purchase Sony's robotics division. The whole shebang: robots and researchers. Apparently, Sir Howard Stringer is looking to rid Sony of the money losing division to Toyota's delight. Does this mean the resurrection of little AIBO? No telling (though it's surely a quick way to win converts... hint), but we're pretty certain that the news will raise the eyebrow of Honda's Asimo, you know, if he had any.

Yeah, we've seen some pretty fancy robotic arm work already this year, but Festo is out to show 'em all up with its fluidic muscle-packin' Airic's_arm. This robotic prosthesis sports a "bone structure" which mimics that found on a real live human, and can be moved via the 30 "muscles" built within. Essentially, Festo's approach to movement relies on "an elastomer tube reinforced by aramid fibers, which contract quickly and exert a pulling force when they're filled with a blast of compressed air or liquid." Of course, you'll notice it doesn't offer quite the same range as less bionic alternatives, but this thing's pretty accurate, indeed. Check it out for yourself, the video's right down there.

We're told this type of battle is indeed legal in certain corners of the universe, but we honestly never thought we'd see the day when a gallinaceous bird came to the human's side to fend off the impending robotic takeover.

Ryan: "That sound? Seth Green and Adult Swim filing suit over the Robot Chicken trademark."Thomas: "Quit your cock blocking and fight!"Darren: "These wooden posts are such lame excuses for adequate prostheses."Paul: "Look, I know you're scared. We're all scared. But if robots and robo-chickens can't learn to live in harmony, we might as well just let the humans have the earth all to themselves."Evan: "Not surprisingly, the martial arts sequel to Howard the Duck tanked at the box office."Don: "2019: Despite repeated protests from People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots, the title bout between Robo Chicken and BD "Boxy Hands" 209 went on as planned."Josh: "I love you!" -- "It'll never work!"

You'd think that a 13-foot / 2 ton, cast iron Scopedog mecha wouldn't require the services of a knee-pad wearin' festival waif, but there you have it. Built by Kogoro Kurata -- the celebrity blacksmith behind the Steampunk laptop -- this 1:1 scale robot was locked and ready for action at Japan's Character and Hobby Collection 2007 show held over the weekend. Seriously though, how tough could the mech be if he's held at bay by some chinsey chain-link?

Gulp, this is not going to end well. That mechanized hand is just a piece of Kogoro Kurata's latest "secret" creation. Just imagine a massive, bus crushing hand fitted to a fully functional, giantmech and you'll understand our concern. Please Kogoro-san, we beg you on behalf of the children: don't finish it!

South Korea already has a pretty decent claim on being the land of robots, but it looks like the country is now trying to make it official, with it soon set to begin construction on an industrial city designed specifically for the robotics industry. Of course, this so-called "Robot Land" won't be all work an no play, with exhibition halls and, yes, even a stadium for robot competitions planned in addition to the usual research centers and homes for manufacturers and parts suppliers. According to Korea.net, a government committee will pick the site for the city this November, with construction then set to get underway sometime in 2009 (with the help of more than a few robot workers no doubt). While complete details on funding won't be announced until after the site is chosen, it'll apparently cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 billion won (or roughly $530 million), 50 billion won of which is expected to come from the government.

Ok, we're going to do our best to get through this post without making any references to hocking a Looj -- ready? So, guess what turned up in the FCC today? Dad's going to be thrilled. An iRobot robot that revealed the latest place around your home they want to clean: the gutter. And we totally get it -- who likes to clean the freaking gutter, you know? Anywho, the new robot, called, ahem, Looj, has two treads, a remote control, and a strange looking "distruptor / ejector / sweeper" auger assembly for clearing out the drains. Let's cut to the chase though, iRobot, only one question remains: we're all waiting for the robotic colonic, when's the release on that?

Apparently looking to show off the dexterity of its "Airic's_arm," automation firm Festo recently put together a slick promotional video that appears to show the robot arm writing "HELLO" on a touchscreen monitor. It seems that the arm may have had ideas of its own, however, as the writing appears to spell out "HELP" as much as it does "HELLO." Exactly what sort of distress the arm had to endure to cause it to issue this potentially non-existent plea, we're not sure. but we'd recommend that the folks at Festo not turn their back on the thing unless they want some robot arms of their own. Hit up the read link below for the complete video.

After letting its MI-RAI-RT (a.k.a SPC-101) robot wander around aimlessly for a while, Speecys has now finally decided to let the bot have a look at the world, adding a cyclops-style camera to its new SPC-101C model. That'll apparently not only let it recognize faces, but expressions as well (we presume that's what's going on in the picture above). Otherwise, the robot appears to be same singing, dancing, and e-mail-reading bot we've come to know and fear. Those willing to let the thing in their house will apparently be able to get one (in Japan) on September 1st for ¥336,000, or just under $3,000. Be sure to check out the read link below for some more pics and a few videos.

Granted, this here project isn't nearly as inexpensive as the $100 underwater ROV from years back, but at least this one is propelled by something a bit more advanced than a pull string. Regardless, the ROV-in-a-Box Project Kit -- created by folks from Carl Hayden High School for use in the National Underwater Robotics Challenge -- is a $249.95 package that "includes all the parts needed to build a working underwater robot: a frame, motors, underwater light, camera, 50-foot tether, operator control box, and a dry-cell battery." Of course, you'll still be required to provide your own tools and TV monitor, but to take a closer look at exactly what a nickel under $250 will buy you, click on through for a detailed video (but do tap Mute beforehand, okay?).

MIT -- long known for winning all sorts of competitions involving modern technology -- has entered into another heated contest which will test its mettle against a wide-variety of opponents... and that contest is the DARPA Urban Challenge. DARPA, who we know and love for its fantastic flights of scientific fancy (see the shoot-through shield and laser-guided bullets) has posed a challenge to contestants to create an autonomous auto (AKA a self-controlled vehicle) which can traverse an urban landscape (such as city streets) all by its lonesome. To create such a vehicle, a team at MIT has taken a typical Land Rover, outfitted it with 40 CPU "cores", high-end GPS receivers, inertial sensors, laser scanners called LIDAR (light detection and ranging), highly sensitive odometers, and a slew of video cameras. The team hopes to pool all of these disparate sensing technologies into a cohesive whole which will imbue their vehicle the preternatural ability to operate on its own in an urban setting. These are truly exciting times to be a car.

Having already proven their worth on the land in various Grand Challenges, robots are now setting out to conquer the open seas, with the first Microtransat Challenge now getting underway in the Irish Sea off Aberystwyth. From the sound of it, however, this year's competition is just setting the stage for next year's race, when larger boats will set sail from France and hopefully find their way across the Atlantic to the finish line in the Caribbean, relying primarily on wind speed and GPS to stay on track. According to the BBC, the boats will also have to be self-sufficient in terms of energy, and they'll need to be less than 4 meters in length (about 13 feet). No word on what's in store for the winner, but it looks like the competition is still open for anyone looking to give it a shot.

Hanson Robotics, creators of the wildly creepy Albert Einstein and (now missing) Philip K. Dick robotic heads has turned its attention to children... er, that is, a child-robot. Sure, it's somewhat difficult to look at little Zeno and not find him just slightly disturbing, but that won't stop the team from breaking ground on this new cybernetic-tyke. The bot will stand 17-inches tall, weigh 6-pounds, and will cost you around $15,000 apiece (consumer models could be $200-300), though you can't put a price on a child-bot that walks, talks, and makes eye contact, right? The original design for Zeno is based loosely on Astro Boy, though somehow the creators have imbued him with a slightly more Chucky-like appearance. Zeno will be controlled wirelessly from your PC, but will also have, "His own moods," and make, "His own decisions." The bot is due out for mass consumption in "a few years," though no word yet on whether Zeno will silently creep into your bedroom at night and stare at you while you sleep.

We've been warning of humankind's eventual obsolescence at the hands of our robot overlords as long as we can remember, so it's basically horrifying to see someone not only fail to heed our advice, but actively hasten our eventual extinction by replacing himself with a robot. Programmer Ivan Bowman works from home, but still maintains his presence in the office through the use of a bot he calls IvanAnywhere -- a clever play on his name and the name of his employer, iAnywhere. Basically a webcam-on-wheels, IvanAnywhere motors around the office, takes meetings, and even gives presentations, all while the real Ivan remains safely pantless in his home office. Actually, that sounds pretty smart -- anyone got a spare webcam?

Could it be that a distant relative of the Great Gazoo has crash landed in Japan only to serve as tour guide in a government building? Well, in Japan, anythingispossible. Besides representing what many believe to be the original "jump the shark" television moment, this Osaka guide-robot turns an otherwise staid municipal lobby into a happy place. That is, until you consider that this is a robotic ancestor to an alien which created a Doomsday Machine. Clearly, that dum-dum in the ballcap is not impressed.

Kyotaro Nishimura is a mystery writer from Japan with his very own museum, which now -- thanks to Fujitsu -- has a shiny new guide robot. The droid in question, a friendly helper named Enon, will autonomously move to the entrance of the museum to greet guests, will guide visitors through the exhibits by using gestures (and its chest-embedded LCD screen), and will play video greetings from Mr. Nishimura, amongst other tasks. This iteration of bot (called a "service robot" by Fujitsu) is just the first in a planned long line of human-esque, automatons. The company hopes to introduce security and package transport bots in the future. The future looks bright, humans.

We've seen a lot of wackyapproaches to the mobile power needs of robots, but this "hybrid" robotics platform solves the problem in that most American of ways: with an internal combustion engine. Using a 2.5-horsepower Subaru engine and a car alternator, developer Ken Gracey was able to build an outdoor bot with what he describes as an "unlimited power budget." Buffered by a battery that essentially acts as a large capacitor, the juice for all the systems on the bot is generated by the engine, a solution that will probably make the coming robot uprising sound like a lawnmower rally. Check a video of the bot in action after the break.

We know, you're actively looking for ways to stay calm and patiently await the arrival of your US-bound i-SOBOT, so we're thrilled to pass along an introductory video to tide you over. The clip goes through and lists everything that comes bundled in with the bot itself, and the animated creature also shows off a few moves, phrases and modes. Granted, we hold a special place in our heart for any miniature mech designed to handle full-fledged somersaults and shamelessly rock out with an air guitar, but we're pretty sure you'll enjoy the vid, too. Go on, it's waiting after the break.

iRobot's mission to create the "robot home" got a whole lot more fleshed out this afternoon at the company's DigitalLife keynote. The general idea is to get usable tech into any and every home -- not just for the nerds, not like the Jetsons. "A little boring, but fantastically useful robots." Obviously iRobot has been attempting this a while with its Roomba and related lines, but the new ConnectR and Looj bots really flesh out that vision. On the boring end of things, the Looj is a remote-controlled bot that can clean up to 60 feet of gutter in 10 minutes. It rolls through your gutter tank-style and spits out the debris, and then rolls back to you. It's waterproof for easy cleaning, and is available today for $99. The ConnectR takes a whole new angle for iRobot, offering telepresence instead of the usual drudgery removal. You can "virtually visit" friends and family by controlling the WiFi-connected bot remotely, with live video, audio, controls and sensor data. The camera tilts and zooms, and has a zoom mode high resolution enough for reading text. You can transmit your voice through the bot, and control an LED light to convey mood. ConnectR launches next year for $499, and will be available in a pilot program for $199 to select beta-testing users.

There's not much to see and feel with these two -- iRobots are all about the action -- but we got a quick look at the new ConnectR and Looj today. The Looj seems well enough suited to its purpose, with solid construction and a powerful thwap. We saw it running through a gutter earlier, and it certainly seems like it can clean as advertised. The ConnectR seems less well polished, but that's to be expected, since iRobot seems to be pretty flexible on what the finished product will be like when it ships in 2008, with changes based on customer feedback from trial sales. One feature in the works is an IR emitter, for controlling home automation and AV products, and hopefully iRobot can clean this one up and add another "killer" feature or two before unleashing it on the public.

We were always a little wary of bringing our Legos into the bathroom, but if you've got no such baseless fears, BattleBricks has published a handy how to on building one of those fancy auto-flushers you see in some of the finest washrooms worldwide. Using only parts from a standard NXT Mindstorms kit, Will Gorman rigged up a contraption that employs the ultrasonic sensor module to detect the presence and then absence of a bathroom-goer, and also features a dedicated button to perform a Rube Goldberg-esque manual flush. Keep on reading for a thankfully-SFW demo vid of the so-called "RoboFlush"...

If you thought an introductory video was enthralling, wait till you check this out. Waziwazi was able to get some time alone with Takara Tomy's i-SOBOT, and while a thorough review would've certainly been enough, those folks went the extra mile and videoed quite a bit of the creature acting up. Reviewers found the bot to be "hilarious and easy to operate," and while they weren't exactly keen on the infrared remote, it was said to be "awesome fun" nonetheless. Of course, we aren't asking you to take our word for it, so head on over to the read link for a fairly in-depth review complete with box shots and lots of in-action video.

Though we've certainly seen robotic legs that like to get their jump on, a team of researchers at the University of Tokyo have assembled a new two-legged creature that can actually spring up about 50-centimeters on its own -- and land gracefully. The creation is part of a larger project aimed at creating humanoids with cat-like (or just human-like, really) reflexes that can better assist the elderly when used as caregivers. Moreover, this hopper relies on air-driven artificial muscles rather than electric motors, and while we're not sure it could hang with Ronaldinho, it can boot a fútbol when asked.

The best and worst part about robots is the fact that they can be purpose-built to perform any task at hand. Oh sure, they can be built to kill, or they can built to test motorcycles without risk to our feeble (yet tasty) meat-sacks. Introducing Flossie, the Castrol-developed test rider that's threading a Fireblade between its "legs" in the shot above. The robot features a self-learning mode that enables it to get a feel (throttle response, clutch drag, gear shifting patterns, etc.) for any stationary bike upon which it's perched -- right, stationary... he's no Murata Boy. Still, as the ultimate precision rider that never tires, Flossie allows Castrol to evaluate its lubricants as effectively as possible. See it in action after the break.

Professor Masatoshi Ishikawa at the University of Tokyo has developed two baseball-playing robots -- one that pitches, and one that hits. The three-fingered pitching bot throws a plastic foam ball at about twenty-five miles per hour, and lands ninety percent of its pitches in the strike zone, while the batting bot has a sensor which determines whether the pitches are balls or strikes, and hits balls in the strike zone with nearly one hundred percent accuracy. They are currently working on increasing the pitcher to about ninety-three miles an hour. The robots don't have any human stylings -- though, personally, we do detect a hint of Terminator.

Robots can travel in time, ride (stationary) motorcycles, and teach your children to disrespect you -- but rarely do they have any sense of ceremony. That's not the case with Iowa State University's still-nameless creation, who recently served as MC to open the school's new Electrical and Computer Engineering building. Said robot is comprised of two Barrett Whole Arm Manipulators stuck on either side of a torso, with a dual-Quickcam-equipped head that can be made to emote thanks to some simple eyebrows and lips. When not cutting ceremonial ribbons he can be found in the lab, twisting and dropping objects to learn about them, as shown in the video after the break. Next step: twisting and dropping lab technicians.

Leave it to the military to dream big. In its recently released "Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047" report, the US Air Force details a drone that could fly over a target and then make the decision whether or not to launch an attack, all without human intervention. The Air Force says that increasingly, humans will monitor situations, rather than be deciders or participants, and that "advances in AI will enable systems to make combat decisions and act within legal and policy constraints without necessarily requiring human input." Programming of the drone will be based on "human intent," with real actual humans monitoring the execution, while retaining the authority and ability to override the system. It's all still extremely vague, with literally no details on exactly how this drone will come into existence, but we do know this: the Air Force plans to have these dudes operational by 2047. We're just holding out to see what those "classified" pages are all about. [Warning: read link is a PDF]

Monday, July 27, 2009

Yes, you could just run out and buy a vocoder, but they're kinda pricey and this way is so much more fun! Using an IKEA clock, a fluorescent desk lamp, an HT8950 voice modulator, a condenser microphone and some miscellaneous stuff you're crafty self is bound to have just laying around, you can make one of your own! Doesn't look terribly complicated to us, but then, we love things that are terribly complicated. Get to it, sirs -- hit the read link for full instructions. Dōmo arigatō.

We've reported on many a creepy looking and dangerous sounding robot in the past, but this one might just take the cake when it comes to dominating your nightmares for the next few nights. Developed by a team at Duke University, the bot uses ultrasound to identify areas of density in human flesh, then starts probing them with a rather painfully large looking needle. It could be used to locate and extract bits of shrapnel from stricken GIs on the battlefield, but that same tech might also be deployed to pierce women's breasts and men's prostates -- ostensibly to treat cancers of those respective regions, but we can think of more nefarious reasons. The bot doesn't have a name, but once it and its kind take over, neither will you.

It's not enough that humans gave robots a place to congregate to plan our demise, now we've adapted them with the ability to extract fuel from the very nectar of life. All that innocent experimentation with fuel cells that run on blood has led to this, a flesh-eating clock. This prototype time-piece from UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau traps insects on flypaper stretched across its roller system before depositing them into a vat of bacteria. The ensuing chemical reaction, or "digestion," is transformed into power that keeps the rollers rollin' and the LCD clock ablaze. The pair offers an alternative design fueled by mice, another contraption whose robotic arm plucks insect-fuel from spider webs with the help of a video camera, and a lamp powered by insects lured to their deaths with ultraviolet LEDs. Man, this is so wrong it has to be right.

Robots and other devices linked to social networking sites aren't exactly anything new, but few have been in the form of tiny robot penguins, and even fewer have been tiny robot penguins with hats. That bit of mold-breaking comes courtesy of upstart Arimaz of Switzerland, which is now busy showing off its MyDeskFriend "Facebook companion" that's set for release this September. As you can see in the video after the break, the bot is able to mosey about your desk without falling off and react to your voice like any good robot, but its real secret is that it can connect to Facebook and read your messages, or even be controlled (some may say tormented) by your real Facebook friends. Look for it to run $99 when it's released.

Designed for search and rescue missions - which, let's face it, are only ever one loose word away from "search and destroy" - the SCRATCHbot uses its whiskers to detect disaster survivors in inhospitable or dangerous areas. The Bristol Robotics Laboratory developed the rat-inspired people searcher over the past 6 years and now hopes to find interest for it in underground and underwater projects where vision may be impaired. Far less heroic uses are also being contemplated, such as textile inspection and implementation inside intelligent vacuum cleaners that would be able to adjust their cleaning to the particular surface they sense. Video of the new bot coming to life is after the break.

We've seen plenty of tiny UAVs (or NAVs -- Nano Aerial Vehicles -- as they're also known), but none quite like the robo-hummingbird that's been in development at DARPA-contractor AeroVironment for the past couple of years. While we haven't heard much about it during that time, the company recently completed its most advanced prototype to date, dubbed Mercury, and it's taken advantage of the opportunity to show off all the progress it has made. As you can see in the video after the break, the bot is able to fly about and hover in place by mimicking the wing movement of a real hummingbird and, of course, be controlled completely untethered. What's more, the firm says that the final version will actually look like a real hummingbird as well, and be able to be controlled from up to a kilometer away -- even inside buildings, where a hummingbird won't look at all out of place.

Drawing faces is hard; and as children suckled at the teat of MTV we posses neither the patience nor the discipline required to learn the skill. So imagine our surprise to discover the Self-Portrait Machine, a device that snaps your photo and then forces you to draw your own face by dragging your bound hands around until the portrait is complete. Jen Hui Liao's project is the result of an observation that "our personal identities are represented by the products of the man-machine relationship." So it's like art and the intersection of philosophy... only it's not -- it's just a robot too lazy to make the portrait itself. See the video after the break.

Micro-aerial vehicles, or MAVs as they're called in the elusive underground, are far from new, but a team from NC State University is hoping to advance the field with an all new critter. The Robo-Bat is a remote controlled creature that relies on a super elastic shape-memory metal alloy for the joints, which is said to provide a full range of motion while enabling it to "always return to its original position -- a function performed by many tiny bones, cartilage and tendons in real bats." The crew is also utilizing other "smart materials" in the muscular system, giving it the ability to react in real time to environmental changes such as sudden wind gusts. Ideally, this bionic chiropteran would be used to chivvy those who dare step foot on Franklin Street or inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, but in less malicious situations, it could help well-meaning scientists get the bottom of that whole "aerodynamics" thing.

Panasonic isn't the first company to turn to robots as a means for dispensing drugs, but it looks like it's set to become one of the bigger players in the still fledgling field, with it announcing today that it's developing a robot that it hopes will rake it about 30 billion yen (or $315 million) by 2016. Unfortunately, Panasonic isn't quite ready to actually show off the robot just yet, but it says it could be making the rounds at some Japanese hospitals by next March, and head into the United States and Europe sometime after that. It's also not ready to do much talking about specifics, with it only going so far as to say that it "does not look humanoid" but rather looks like "a cabinet with lots of small drawers" (no doubt somewhat like the Pyxis bot pictured above), and that it'll be able to store medical data for each patient and sort out prescriptions for up to 400 patients in about two hours. That cabinet won't come cheap though, with Panasonic estimating that it'll cost "several tens of millions of yen," or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Robots can travel in time, ride (stationary) motorcycles, and teach your children to disrespect you -- but rarely do they have any sense of ceremony. That's not the case with Iowa State University's still-nameless creation, who recently served as MC to open the school's new Electrical and Computer Engineering building. Said robot is comprised of two Barrett Whole Arm Manipulators stuck on either side of a torso, with a dual-Quickcam-equipped head that can be made to emote thanks to some simple eyebrows and lips. When not cutting ceremonial ribbons he can be found in the lab, twisting and dropping objects to learn about them, as shown in the video after the break. Next step: twisting and dropping lab technicians.

Professor Masatoshi Ishikawa at the University of Tokyo has developed two baseball-playing robots -- one that pitches, and one that hits. The three-fingered pitching bot throws a plastic foam ball at about twenty-five miles per hour, and lands ninety percent of its pitches in the strike zone, while the batting bot has a sensor which determines whether the pitches are balls or strikes, and hits balls in the strike zone with nearly one hundred percent accuracy. They are currently working on increasing the pitcher to about ninety-three miles an hour. The robots don't have any human stylings -- though, personally, we do detect a hint of Terminator.

Last time we checked in on STARMAC, the autonomous hover bot was fuming over his near-miss in a desperate bid to assassinate Robert Scoble. Recently paroled, the bot has turned his energies to more constructive pursuits, like performing a controlled flip and selling drugs to kids. Still, do we detect a hint of brooding in these acrobatics? Video is after the break.

After risking life and limb to show off Panasonic's double-As in a harrowing climb up the Grand Canyon, EVOLTA is back for more record setting hijinks. This time, however, he's been tasked to pedal his adorable little heart out on a miniature tricycle. The plan is to take this year's Le Mans race by storm and break some sort of world record for distance traveled by a robot -- though we're not sure how exactly that's defined, since EVOLTA isn't exactly a speed demon. This new version of the bot has been completely revamped to ride a bike and follow an infrared path blazed by his superiors. A couple of videos are after the break.

If you're one of those nerds, you're probably quite stoked at the prospect of a real, honest-to-goodness Doraemon in your living room. And even if not, surely we can all agree that this guy is pretty damn cute, right? This ear-less, time travelin' cat features motion, light, heat, and sound sensors that let it react to its environment with a whole slew of facial features and vocal mannerisms that mean nothing to us, seeing as how it's communicating in Japanese. This guy is available from Bandai, starting September 3rd -- in the meantime, check out a few pics snapped at the Tokyo Toy Show below.

The best and worst part about robots is the fact that they can be purpose-built to perform any task at hand. Oh sure, they can be built to kill, or they can built to test motorcycles without risk to our feeble (yet tasty) meat-sacks. Introducing Flossie, the Castrol-developed test rider that's threading a Fireblade between its "legs" in the shot above. The robot features a self-learning mode that enables it to get a feel (throttle response, clutch drag, gear shifting patterns, etc.) for any stationary bike upon which it's perched -- right, stationary... he's no Murata Boy. Still, as the ultimate precision rider that never tires, Flossie allows Castrol to evaluate its lubricants as effectively as possible. See it in action after the break.

Are you ready for this? Can you stomach the truth? If things continue spiraling madly out of control as they are right now, there's at least a modicum of a chance that your children or grandchildren will greet a lifelike robot when sashaying in for the first day of kindergarten. Horrifying, we know. A new research effort published in this month's Science outlines new ways in which humanoids could actually be used to instruct our little ones. At the core of the project is imitation; humans, especially young ones, learn a multitude of mannerisms and such by simply watching others. Thus, it stands to reason that robots are "well-suited to imitate us, learn from us, socialize with us and eventually teach us." Already, these social bots are being used on an experimental basis to teach various skills to preschool children, "including the names of colors, new vocabulary words and simple songs." Just think -- in 2071, those harmless lessons will morph into studies of subterfuge, insurrection and rapacity.

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn't want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back -- so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We'll be handing out a new gadget every day to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we've got an OWI Robotic Arm Kit on offer. Read the rules below (no skimming -- we're omniscient and can tell when you've skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff!Huge thanks to OWI for providing the gear!The rules:

Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for "fixing" the world economy, that'd be sweet too.

You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)

If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you'll be fine.

Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.

Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) OWI Robotic Arm Kit. Approximate retail value is $53.95.

If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.

Entries can be submitted until Saturday, July 18th, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!

Researchers have long turned to insects for a little inspiration when creating robots, but things have entered a terrifying new dimension this week, with two separate groups each finding new ways to meld bug and machine. The further along of the pair is a group of scientists from Tokyo University's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, who have not only used a live silkmoth to control a toy car, but severed the head of a moth and wired it into the vehicle pictured above (look closely). By directing stimuli to the moth's still-functioning antennae, the researchers were able to record the motor commands issued by the brain's nerve cells and, in turn, control the vehicle -- which, in addition to totally freaking people out, allows them to study and record data on how neurons respond to stimulus.

Slightly less far along on the road to bug armageddon is Pentagon contractor OpCoast, which is working on some full on "cyborg crickets" that behave like the real thing but have the added benefit of being able to form a mobile communications network in an emergency situation. That network, the company says, could eventually consist of hundreds or thousands of the crickets which, like real crickets, would communicate with each other through wing beats, and even be able to vary their "call tone" when they detect the presence of chemical or biological agents, or potentially even the scent of a person trapped in rubble.

By now, you're no doubt well acquainted with the Albert Hubo Einstein robot developed by the mad scientists at KAIST, but some researchers at the University of California, San Diego has also been working on their own Einstein bot for the past little while, and they've now managed to teach it some new tricks. While the bot has previously been able to display a full range of expressions through some pre-programmed facial movements, it's now able to teach itself how to smile or display other emotions thanks to a new trial-and-error technique dubbed "body babble." That apparently works by comparing Einstein's attempts at an expression with some facial recognition software, which provides Al with some positive feedback each time he manages an actual expression. Did we mention there's a video? Check it out after the break.

Update: The folks at UC, San Diego have kindly pointed us towards a bit more background on their Einstein robot, including a video of its pre-self-teaching days, and a couple of behind-the-scenes pics. Head on past the break for one we like to call "Einstein: Behind the Face."